Melba’s Vintage Playroom

Image Credit: Dame Nellie Melba as “Nedda” in Pagliacci - Yarra Ranges Regional Museum collection

This exhibition concluded on 3 August 2025.

Dame Nellie Melba loved parties, games and pranks, and her favourite saying was “let’s have fun!”. As part of the Museum’s A Toast to Melba exhibition, the Chambers Gallery was transformed into a vintage whimsical playroom, inspired by the famous singer’s adventurous life and the nursery at Coombe Cottage. 

Melba often hosted elaborate birthday parties, and she once turned Coombe Cottage into a nursery rhyme themed wonderland for her granddaughter Pamela’s 10th birthday. She is renowned for playing cheeky tricks on her co-stars and famed English actress Ellen Terry often referred to Coombe Cottage as a “lovely fairy palace”. 

Melba’s Vintage Playroom invited children to venture back in time for a playdate a hundred years ago. Kids can dress up, pose with a rocking horse, direct and perform a puppet show, perfect their quoit skills, snuggle up in the reading corner and hand-colour the wallpaper.